


Garden State

by attice



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe - Criminals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:17:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attice/pseuds/attice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Steve’s the kind of guy who tells people to be quiet in movie theaters not because he can’t hear the movie, but because somebody can’t hear the movie; he’s the kind of guy that sticks up for mothers in clothing stores not because they’re his mother, but because they’re somebody’s mother. He’s the kind of guy that—</p><p>(It takes seven shots.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Garden State

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [半邊世界](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1621985) by [Cyaegha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyaegha/pseuds/Cyaegha)



In the best universe, the rent is never paid, and the two of them die like dogs in the gutter a few weeks later. 

- 

In the worst universe, Bucky’s mother tells him to come home for lunch. In the worst universe, Bucky picks that day to listen to his mother, and in the worst universe, he goes home through the back alleys. He finds Steve there, crumpled against a wall with blood on his mouth and a shadow cracking its fists above him.

Bucky beats the shit out of the kid. Steve moves one of his upper teeth with his tongue and tries to determine if it’s been cracked loose. He lies there and watches, up to his elbows in garbage—mostly because he thinks his ankle is broken and it hurts to move, and partly because if he gets up, he’ll have to look into the kid’s eyes as he gets his teeth knocked out.

In the worst universe, the kid loses a canine and Steve doesn’t lose his money. In the worst universe, the rent is paid and Steve lives to be twenty-five. In the worst universe, Steve meets Dr. Erskine, and he turns into Captain America, and he watches Bucky die in the mountains.

-

Steve listens to his mother until the day she dies. Bucky does not. Bucky’s mother tells him to come home for lunch, so at a quarter to twelve he goes to the corner store and tries to buy a dirty magazine instead. Mr. Torrance makes a fuss, and Bucky shouts back, and in the end, Bucky leaves with slightly less dignity and a pack of stolen cigarettes. 

Steve? Steve gets the shit beaten out of him, and the kid takes every crumpled goddamn newspaper-boy dollar in his pocket. Steve’s nineteen, but he can pass for less when he takes off his tie. Steve’s nineteen, and his mother has been dead for a year, and the rent is four more dollars than he can afford even when he throws the _Times_ on doorsteps in the morning and buses tables at night.

This is not the worst universe, but it’s not the best, either.

-

“Two weeks?” Bucky says. He has an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and it bobs up and down when he talks. “Two weeks is all the time in the world. Relax, Rogers." 

Steve has a split lip and a broken ankle. In this universe, he loses the tooth.

-

Bucky doesn’t tell Steve exactly what happened, but Steve thinks he can piece it together. He shows up at Steve’s apartment at three o’clock in the morning with a black eye and a suitcase spilling over with socks and underwear, and Steve lets him in because—well, what else can he do? He watches Bucky find an empty drawer in a dresser full of empty drawers, and he helps Bucky fold his shirts so they all fit inside.

“We’re in this together now,” Bucky says, sitting next to him on the floor. His eyes are bright. Bucky is only three months older than Steve, but back then, Steve believes that he is infinitely wiser.

“What about your ma?” Steve asks. “And your p—”

“How much did you say the rent was?” Bucky interrupts, coaxing a cigarette out of his crumpled pack.

-

Steve delivers so many newspapers over the span of three days that he sees headlines in his sleep.

When he opens his eyes, he sees Bucky.

-

“A week,” he says over breakfast, which is two cups of coffee balanced on a three-legged table. “We’re done, Bucky." 

It’s not his style to be hopeless, but what can he do? He works, and he works. He asks his boss for overtime but he won’t give it to him, no way no _how,_ Rogers, what do you think I am, made of money? Steve’s considering going to the bank for a loan, but he’s nineteen and it’s not enough cash to ask a bank for and Bucky’s stained all of his ties, anyway.

“Five dollars,” Steve says, and watches his own fingers drum across the table. “Where am I gonna get five dollars?”

He doesn’t see a lot of Bucky these days. Bucky goes out at night and comes back in the morning, sometimes with bruises, sometimes with hickeys, sometimes with a few bucks. It’s not Steve's style to be hopeless, but what can he do? He looks at the marks on Bucky’s neck and tells himself that whatever happens, he’s going to survive. 

Bucky tells him to relax, a week is all the time in the world, and, for a second, his knee bumps Steve’s under the table and Steve believes him.

- 

What does Bucky do at night? 

There are no universes in which Steve follows him. Would he even be surprised, if he knew? He guesses. He has a pretty good idea. 

Bucky comes home one night reeking of piss and moonshine, and he slaps a gun and a five-dollar bill on the table, and Steve—

-

Steve Rogers doesn’t like bullies.

-

Steve pays the rent that month. He holds his breath when the landlord knocks on his door because it’s late, and he holds his breath when he hands him the envelope, and he holds his breath when he twitches his mustache and slits the paper open because isn’t there the possibility that it’s not enough, that he’s suddenly short a dollar, that it’s _counterfeit,_ that it’s drug money, sex money, money stolen out of the pockets of some big-shot pinstriped businessman that’s going to kill Bucky in the night and not even leave an envelope of blood money at their doo—

Steve pay the rent that month, and he has nothing to spare afterwards. This is why he’s partly surprised when he’s walking down Fifth Avenue, Bucky at his side, hands in his pockets, coat too thin and lungs too tight, and Bucky stops suddenly, bumping into him, and turns to stare into the golden light spilling out of the window.

“That’s a nice watch,” he says.

It is a nice watch. Steve looks at it, and Bucky looks at it, and people push around them.

“Wonder how much it costs,” he says.

Steve shakes his head, maybe a little nervously. “Come on, Bucky, what do you need a watch like—”

“Not for me,” Bucky says, and looks at Steve out of the corner of his eye like he’s forgotten he’s been standing next to him the whole time.

-

What does Steve say to that?

“It’s a nice watch,” he says, slowly, choosing his words carefully—“but I already got a watch.” He proves it to him, raises his wrist with his father’s dying brown watch-face ticking past the seconds, and Bucky looks at it like he’s not exactly sure what it is.

“How much money we got?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Steve says, automatically. “Maybe thirty cents in the sock drawer.”

Bucky lets Steve lead him away, after that, but Steve doesn’t forget the look on his face for a long time.

-

It’s funny. The two of them manage to keep up with the bills for a while, but it’s not the same. Bucky goes out more and stays in less, and Steve finds himself spending more time thinking about him in his absence. Christmas is coming around, so Steve starts saving because he want to get him something nice—maybe not the twenty-dollar watch, but something nice. A new coat, or a sports jacket, or something, anything.

He’s not expecting anything from Bucky. Why would he? He’s Steve Rogers. This has nothing to do with hurt feelings, or any kind of feelings at all; he’s not expecting anything from Bucky because Bucky's not the type, and on top of that, he’s not sure if Bucky has a job. Maybe the truth is that he doesn’t _want_ anything from Bucky—the way Bucky eyes the fancy fur coats and the gold-plated earrings in store windows when the pair of them go down the street to buy eggs and milk—Steve’d be happier if all he told him was that he was a punk, Rogers, so have a merry goddamn Christmas. 

-

“What _happened_ to you?”

Bucky tries to grin through his split lip. Steve can see money sticking out of his pockets.

-

According to the mirror, Steve goes a full six weeks without getting beaten up. The hole where his tooth used to be heals; his black eye melts to purple to yellow to brown and eventually fades away. His ankle was never really broken, but after a while, he can move it in any direction he wants to without wincing.

He goes a full six weeks without getting beaten up. On December twenty-third, he goes to Enderby’s on Twenty-Seventh to buy that jacket for Bucky. Not a winter coat, but is that a surprise? Steve’s getting him a sports jacket, because all of Bucky's make him look like he’s been attacked by dogs. 

The lines are long. It’s almost Christmas Eve. In front of him, there’s a lady with about a hundred bags and two daughters’ hands clenched in hers. The lines are long, and Steve waits with the jacket over his arm for the good part of an hour. The little girls are getting antsy; the bags look heavy. He’s about to offer to—

“Excuse me,” the lady says, suddenly, to a man in front of her. “Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you want?” he asks, and turns back around.

“You can’t cut into the line,” she says.

The story is always the same. He says, “Watch it, lady, or you’ll have another thing coming to you,” and Steve’s never liked bullies, and there are little kids standing next to her, for God’s sake, so Steve does the thing that he knows best, and before he knows it, he’s—

-

He goes a full six weeks without getting beaten up. They say that history repeats itself.

-

“You dumb punk,” Bucky says, and dabs a drop of whiskey onto Steve’s bleeding face off a rolled-up towel. “What the hell were you thinking?" 

“It wasn’t right,” Steve says, and flinches when his cut stings, but keeps going—“It wasn’t right, Bucky. You can’t talk to a lady that way. A lady with _kids,_ for Pete’s sake.”

“What were you doing there, anyway?” He pours more liquor onto the towel; Steve doesn’t bother to mention that it was one of his mother’s best. “Enderby’s—isn’t that a fancy place?”

“Nothing,” Steve says. “Wasn’t doing anything. Just taking a look.”

-

Christmas comes and goes like summer rain. One morning, Steve wakes up too early when the sky is too dark and the air too cold and keeps his eyes open until he realizes that the heat’s gone off. He debates whether this is worth waking Bucky up for, but then he remembers that it’s Christmas, _Christmas,_ and he lies back down with the comforter up to his chin and thinks about all of the presents he’s going to get, all of the shining Christmas feasts he’s going to eat, all of the golden angels that are smiling down at him from heaven.

-

(Like all things, the feeling passes.)

-

There’s no fire and no heat, but it’s still dark out and the city is twinkling just beyond the window. Almost like a Christmas tree.

“Merry Christmas, Rogers,” Bucky says, a little embarrassed, and hands Steve a small box with a red ribbon tied around it in a bow. Steve takes it, a little red in the face himself, and grins at Bucky even though he’s feeling worse than he has in a long, long time.

“You didn’t have to,” Steve says, still smiling like a dope, as Bucky says, “I know.”

“What’re you waiting for?” he asks. “Open it.”

Steve’s sitting next to Bucky on the raggedy couch, so close their thighs touch, and Bucky’s arm is warm against his when he bumps into it pulling the ribbon off. Steve’s hand is shaking, and he can feel Bucky’s eyes on it.

The funny thing is, Steve knows exactly why his hand is shaking. He thinks he has a good idea of what’s inside. He’s pretty sure because when he raises the box to shake it, Bucky’s eyes widen and his fingers curl.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he says.

“Better not be expensive,” Steve says. “What is it?”

“Why don’t you just open it and see for yourself?”

Steve tugs the ribbon off and pulls the box open, and he doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until—

“Look,” Bucky crows, as Steve’s breath stops clean in his throat. “Whaddya think?”

Silver cufflinks.

Silver _cufflinks,_ as if Steve’s ever go anywhere that’s going to require him to wear anything but a holey gray suit jacket and some oversized slacks. _Silver—_ he’s not even sure his mother had any jewelry like this, let alone something so—

Steve stares at them for a long time, and then he picks one of them up and turns it over in his hand, examining the tiny, intricate designs etched into the surface.

 -

What does he do now? The universe splits, here, again. There’s the version where he tells Bucky that he doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them, take them back _today_ and buy yourself a goddamn coat. There’s the version where he swallows twice and tells Bucky that he doesn’t deserve them, but accepts them anyway—the smile on Bucky’s face in that one is just about unbearable.

In this one, he swallows once before asking Bucky where he got them. He puts the cufflink back into the box, and looks him in the eyes so he can’t look away, and he gives him all the time in the world to think about his answer.

-

“I—” –his smile doesn’t falter—“I bought ‘em, Steve. Cost a near damn fortune, too." 

-

At first, Bucky says—

-

“Well—maybe I didn’t. Maybe I—well, you know, it’s all the same, really, isn’t it? Those sleazy big cheeses with the hookers and the drinks at the back rooms—they’re filthy goddamn rich. They don’t—I beat one of them at a game. That’s the truth, right there. I beat him, and I won them fair and square. They were his, and he gave them to me, and now they’re yours. See? Simple as that. Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Steve-o.”

Steve stares at him a long time before asking, “What were you playing?”

“Poker,” Bucky says, voice smooth as dripping honey—“Beat him at poker. Cards—you know how good I play. Pissed the hell out of him, but—but what can I say? I’m a good liar. I always beat you at poker, don’t I, Steve?" 

Steve, as always, doesn’t have the heart to call his bluff.

- 

There’s one way it’s always been, and one way it always will be. Steve’s always stared at Bucky too long, touched him the wrong way, looked at him with something in his gaze that probably shouldn’t have been there—and Bucky is his best friend, his only friend, but sometimes he wonders if that’s the only reason he blinks and sees the color of Bucky’s eyes on the insides of his eyelids, if that’s the only reason he knows the way the freckles on Bucky’s back triangulate, if that’s the only reason his heart breaks a little every time Bucky smiles when he lies—if that’s the only reason Steve smiles back, and fits his arm around Bucky’s shoulder, and tells him something that is painfully and utterly true.

-

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything, Buck,” Steve says, and he really is. “I was gonna get you a sport coat, but—but I never got around to it, I guess. Short on cash.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky says, and he grins and rubs his fist in Steve’s hair so Steve can smell his aftershave. “You’re all I need, Rogers.”

-

At first, Bucky says—                                                                              

-

In another universe, Bucky joins the army when he’s twenty, and Steve doesn’t look him in the eye when he steps out of their apartment for the last time. In one version, Bucky gets shot by a German sniper on the steps of a blown-out French pub, and his dog tags get mailed to his aunt, who mails them to Steve. It doesn’t matter whether Steve cries or not, because Bucky is Bucky is Bucky, and Bucky’s dead.

In yet another universe, it rains on the day that the 107th infantry treks through Rennes, and the sniper up in the clock tower doesn’t get as good of a shot. Bucky comes home in a wheelchair and doesn’t look Steve in the eye when Steve says _welcome back,_ and at night Steve closes his eyes and tries to remember the bright-eyed kid who used to steal gum for him even though he told him not to, every time, until Mr. Torrance found out and Steve volunteered to take the blame. What happened to that kid?

In this story, Steve is nineteen, and Bucky’s a few months older than him. Bucky gives him a Christmas present, and Steve doesn’t give Bucky one. Neither of them ever forget it.

-

“It’s not fair,” Bucky says, one night, a few months later—maybe March, probably April. He rolls over, so he’s on his back, sheets pooled around his propped-up elbows, and jabs Steve in the side.

“Mmph,” Steve says, and yanks the comforter higher around his head.

“Heat’s off again.”

“Yeah.”

“Mice are back.”

“Mm.”

“You got back at one in the goddamn morning, didn’t you?”

“Go to sleep.”

“And you’re gonna have to get up at—what? Five o’clock? Jesus.”

Steve makes a sound.

“I’m sick of this,” Bucky says.

-

The two of them buy their groceries from the corner store that their mothers used to buy their groceries, and Steve’s pretty sure that their children are going to buy groceries from there, too. He knows the shopkeeper, Tom, and he knows him—sometimes just Steve, sometimes just Bucky, sometimes SteveandBucky, one word that makes Steve’s heart beat a little faster. Sometimes, when he’s short on cash, Tom lets him off, and Steve owes him for a while, until he can pay it back. At Christmastime, Steve sends him a card, and Tom sends back a free pack of gum, or cigarettes, or chocolate.

-

 “I don’t get it,” Steve says—“You want to go to a different store?" 

“I want a different kind of smoke,” he says. “They sell a nice kind of cigar a little way from here. Tom doesn’t have a lot—doesn’t have this one, either.”

Steve stares at Bucky, tries to figure what’s different about him. His hair is combed a different way, for one thing; he’s clean-shaven, and has his hands in his pockets. It’s almost the end of _July_ , for Chrissakes, and he’s wearing a jacket.

“You’re paying for the cab,” Steve says, finally, but what does it matter, really?

-

Steve feels slightly ridiculous when he steps into J.J’s Quick ‘N Easy—not because he’s walking next to a guy sweating clean through the armpits of his jacket, but because he’s pretty sure no one’s going to recognize him here. He’s not sure what that feels like—he’s grown up in the same apartment, same city, same people, same streets—even though it’s New York and every face is different, they’re all the same in the end—and yet here he is, close enough to the Atlantic Ocean that he can almost hear the waves. There’s a lot of sunlight in the store, but there’s more sunlight outside.

“I’ll wait here,” Steve says, finally.

Bucky looks like he’s about to say something, but then he hesitates. “It’ll just be a minute.”

What does Steve say to that? Bucky doesn’t ask him for a lot of things. He goes in with him.

-

Bucky picks up the cigarettes, and he walks towards the counter with a hand in his pocket. Steve’s thinking of saying something like _see, you didn’t need me_ or _I’ll go wait outside_ or _hold on, I want a Coke,_ something, something stupid, but—

Bucky puts the cigarettes on the counter, and then he yanks his hand out of his pocket.

It takes a second for Steve to register that he’s holding a gun, _the gun,_ and two more seconds for the old man at the counter to register it before any of them register the fact that Bucky is shouting at the top of his lungs.

The blood rushes to Steve’s head so fast it makes his knees go weak; he catches himself on the counter, and the old man slams himself against the wall like Steve’s about to punch him in the face; he puts his hands up, _up,_ like he’s in some stupid gangster movie, like Bucky’s _sticking him up,_ and Steve can’t breathe but it’s—

“Bucky,” Steve says, but Bucky isn’t listening to him—“ _Bucky_!”

“Open it!” he shouts, aiming the gun at the man’s head—“Open it, goddammit!" 

“Bucky!”—Steve’s shouting now, and—

-

The old man opens the register. Steve realizes that he’s still holding onto the counter for dear life when Bucky looks at him for the first time and tells him to take the money.

He—he doesn’t know what to do. This is wrong, this goes against everything Steve believes in, but this is _Bucky,_ and—and he doesn’t know what to do, and the old man is trembling so hard he’s knocking packs of pills off the shelves, and Steve’s shaking, too, and—

Bucky shouts, and Steve doesn’t listen; a siren goes off outside, in the distance, and Bucky panics and swings the gun to Steve’s head. He—well, what does he do now?

“Relax,” Steve tells him, voice shaking—“Relax, Bucky. Take it easy.”

Bucky’s hand is shaking, too.

Steve reaches over and takes the money out, bunching crumpled wads of bills in his fists, real slow, and the old man squeezes himself against the shelves like he’s hoping he’ll be able to fit inside. Steve blinks once, twice, again, and—

“Let’s go,” Bucky says.

-

It’s over just as fast as it began. Steve could almost convince himself it never happened if it wasn’t for the bulge in Bucky’s pocket, the bulge in his pockets, the fact that his knees are knocking so loud he can hear them.

Cars go past the two of them on the street; he wills himself not to look back. Bucky hails a cab, and when the driver asks _where,_ he tells him, in a voice that sounds like he’s about to cry, _Jersey._

Steve sits next to him in the backseat. Their arms are touching, and their thighs are touching, and their feet are touching, but he doesn't feel a thing.

-

There are some things that don’t change.

Well, that’s a lie, isn’t it?

Steve’s the kind of guy who tells people to be quiet in movie theaters not because he can’t hear the movie but because somebody can’t hear the movie; he’s the kind of guy that sticks up for mothers in clothing stores not because they’re his mother but because they’re somebody’s mother. He’s the kind of guy that gets his ass kicked for being stubborn and is stubborn anyway, he’s the kind of guy who’d rather take a beating around the face than sit down and watch it happen, he’s the kind of guy who’d throw himself in front of a train to save a little kid, an old man, a mother, a father, anyone. He’s the kind of guy who—

-

The gun is in Bucky’s pocket, and the money is in Steve's.

-

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth.

“You’re _sorry?”_ Steve shouts, all of that fear pouring out of him so fast it makes his bones burn—“You pointed a _gun_ at my _head!”_

“I know,” Bucky says—“I’m sorry. I’m real—”

“Oh, you’re _real_ sorry,” Steve says, fists balled, loud enough that he’s sure they can hear him downstairs—“Almost shot an old man, almost shot your best friend, _robbed a goddamn grocery store,_ and you’re _sorry!"_  

He’s never seen Bucky like this before.

“I wasn’t—" 

“ _The_ _police_ —”

“Keep your voice down!” Bucky hisses, and Steve’s mouth clamps shut like closing elevator doors.

“The _police,”_ Steve hisses, sticking a finger in Bucky’s face—“We’re going to _prison,_ we’re gonna—”

“We’re gonna _nothing,”_ Bucky says, grabbing Steve’s shoulders hard enough to bruise—“We’re gonna make it. No one saw us, no one—”

“No one saw us,” Steve crows, feeling hysterical—“No one saw us except for the man with the _gun in his face!”_

“No,” Bucky says, fingers digging into Steve’s flesh—“Get a grip on yourself, Rogers!”

Steve’s not one hundred percent sure, but he figures that that’s about the moment that he realizes, finally, that they’re in this together. Bucky may have the bullets in his pocket, but Steve’s face is going to be on the wanted poster right beside his.

-

At first, Bucky says—                                                                              

-

Steve wakes up and he’s back home—lying in his cold bed, except here it’s warm; hearing taxis honk and girls scream, except here it’s silent; with Bucky beside him, except here he’s alone, tangled in sheets that wrap around his wrists. He’s back in Brooklyn and he’s not; he’s the same Steve Rogers and he’s not; he’s just a person and he’s not. No, he’s a fugitive, a thief, a no-good, dirty son of a— 

Bucky’s awake. He’s standing at the window like a ghost, and there’s blue light on his face that tells Steve that the sun hasn’t quite risen yet.

Steve wants to say something to him, but what’s there to say? 

-

At first, Bucky says that it was a mistake. He says they’re never going to do it again— _he’s_ never going to do it again, and he’s never going to get Steve involved again.

-

“Nothing’s gonna happen,” he says, sitting at the hotel vanity, backwards, like he’s trying to use the back of the chair as a barrier between Steve and him. “I have a plan. I’ve got it all figured out. We’re going to make it. We’re not going to jail.”

Steve looks at him and he’s going to say something like _another great plan, huh Barnes_ or _I trust you just about as much as I trust the Third Reich_ because there’s a war going on, didn’t you know? and he wants to split Bucky open like Bucky did to him when he made Steve look down the barrel of that gun, but then Steve sees, in the dim early-morning sunlight that’s muffled by the curtains, that Bucky’s eyes are rimmed red and his fingers are shaking, just slightly, and he thinks maybe, _maybe_ —

“When are we leaving?” Steve asks, instead.

Bucky looks at him like he’s going to cry—for half a second—and then he says _soon_ in a voice that’s the same as Steve’s ever known. Later, Steve’s going to think back to this and realize that that moment in the hotel room was one of the only times Bucky was ever afraid of him—and even then, not afraid of him exactly, but afraid of what he was going to say, what he could have said.

-

They leave in the morning. They take a taxi and drive down to a crumbling beach town with an apartment complex that looks like a sand castle built too close to the ocean. Bucky gets out of the car first and pays for it; Steve’s stomach flushes with something sour when he sees the driver take the money. 

Steve looks at the disintegrating brown cinderblocks and steps onto the sidewalk in front of the building. “What are we doing here?” 

“Stay here,” Bucky says. “I’ll be back.”

“Like hell I will,” Steve says, curling his lip—“Like I’m going to let you just walk in alone and—”

“ _Stay,”_ Bucky says sharply, like Steve’s a dog trying to follow him into the bathroom. “You can’t—just stay here, okay? I’ll be back in a second. Two seconds.”

-

Bucky comes out half an hour later. His tie is slightly askew and his hair is ruffled, but other than that, he looks all right. Steve feels nervous until Bucky walks right past him, hardly looking at him, and then he follows him through one of the doors, and he follows him up the rickety stairs, panting by the time they reach the top, and he follows him to another door and into a room with nothing on the walls and sand on the floors.

“Welcome to your new home,” Bucky says.

-

There are questions.

_Why do we have to—_

“What else are we going to do, go back to Brooklyn?” Steve’s grammar-school vocabulary words come back to him when he looks at Bucky: _anxious, fidgety, adamant. Incredulous._ “We can’t go back. They’re probably looking for us. We’re not too hard to spot—I mean, come on, we stick out like two sore thumbs, how could we possibly hide?”

-

By the time he wakes up, Bucky’s gone. He sits up and looks around the empty apartment, back aching, head spinning. There’s no note, but he’s not too worried; Bucky left his jacket here, his watch, and his side of the blankets—beach towels, actually—is still warm.

Steve’s fingers linger for longer than they should on that warmth. So do his eyes—and then, because he can’t help it, he leans down and presses his face into the towel.

It smells like—it smells like what Bucky used to smell like. Back when they were kids. Now— _now,_ a word which, in Steve’s head, still refers to _a few days ago—_ now, he smells like cologne and girls’ perfume and whiskey and cigarettes—but back then, he smelled like sweat and his father’s cologne. He smells like that, now. Almost.

-

Does Bucky know what Steve sees when he looks at him? Does he see the way Steve’s eyes trace the curve of his jaw, the curl of his hair—does he realize it when Steve stands in the mirror beside him looking at Bucky’s reflection instead of his own? Steve stares. Steve freezes when Bucky brushes him in his sleep. He’s pretty sure he’s touched Bucky every day in his life that really counted and didn’t think twice, but nowadays when Bucky slings his arm around his shoulders, Steve has to resist the urge to flinch away. It feels wrong. It feels wrong for him not to—to what? 

The thing is, Bucky’s not stupid. Steve knows that better than anyone. Steve got better grades than him in school, and the closest thing Bucky’s been called to smart is smartass, but Steve know that Bucky is smart. Bucky sees things. He notices.

- 

Steve sleeps on a pile of beach towels for six more days. On the seventh day—

“Come on,” Bucky says. “Put your jacket on. I found a place that’ll hire us. Come on—yeah, take your watch, get your jacket and we’ll—”

- 

What does a gun sound like? In comic books, it’s _bang,_ sometimes _pow._ What does a gun sound like in the hand of his best friend?

-

It’s surprisingly easy for him to slam Bucky against the wall of the hotel room. Maybe it’s because Bucky’s not resisting, maybe because he’s _thinking,_ maybe because he’s finally realized that maybe just _maybe_ Steve’s here of his volition, that there is no contract holding him to Bucky, there is no law that says that Steve has to follow Bucky. It’s surprisingly easy for Steve to lean into Bucky's face and shout so that he can taste his breath and see him flinch when flecks of Steve’s saliva land on Bucky's—

 _“What were you thinking?”_ That doesn’t sound like Steve. “Are you _insane_?” Steve pushes him again, even though there’s nowhere for Bucky to go—and Bucky lets him, which makes him more furious—Steve’s sick of this, sick of Bucky acting like Steve’s nothing, like Steve’s his toy, like Steve’s his dog, like the things Steve says have no real— 

“I’m done,” Steve says, surprisingly quiet—“I’m done. I can’t even—”

Bucky’s not listening to him. He’s looking at his face, and maybe into his eyes; Steve can feel the blood rush in his veins again, roaring in his ears like a waterfall, fear and anger and _fury_ that makes him tremble because it runs deeper than tonight, than yesterday, and maybe that’s why he doesn't flinch away when Bucky stretches out his hands, because maybe Steve thinks that Bucky’s going to finally hit him, and maybe that’s why he can’t flinch away when Bucky takes Steve’s face into his hands and presses his mouth against Steve’s.

-

When Steve loses his virginity, he’s twenty years old, and scared, and warm, and Bucky’s mouth is pressed against his. Bucky kisses him in a hotel room in the middle of a sticky August night, and Steve kisses him back. The two of them are sitting on the bed with Bucky’s shirt off and his suspenders on and Steve’s tie curled somewhere in the sheets, and Bucky leans over and turns Steve’s face to meet his, so soft and sweet he can almost convince himself that he’s in one of the romantic pictures they show on the screen.

-

He kisses Steve in a hotel room in the middle of a sticky August night, they kiss for a while. Somewhere along the way, his hands run up Steve’s arms and flatten against his chest for a moment until they can unbutton his shirt.

He pulls it off, but Steve doesn’t want to stop; he kisses harder, pushes his tongue into Bucky’s mouth and tries not to make any strange noises when Bucky sucks on it, when his hands turn Steve’s face to one side and he presses a kiss to his jawbone before dropping to his neck and sucking marks into it so that every thought in Steve’s mind melts and all he can do is breathe _._

Steve makes a sound when Bucky bites his shoulder—can he help it? He makes a sound that may or may not remind him that he wants to kiss Bucky again, so he does, and Steve runs his teeth over Bucky’s lower lip as Bucky’s hands trail along Steve’s sides and settle on his chest again. He pushes Steve down, and Steve goes down, so he’s propped up against the pillows, red in the face and absolutely out of breath.

His eyes lock with Bucky’s. He’s— 

Steve goes for Bucky’s belt, partially because he has no idea what he’s doing and partially because he knows exactly what he’s doing, and, hell, he’s come this far, he wants to do it. Bucky laughs breathlessly, not really a laugh at all, and he helps Steve pull the belt out and get his fly unzipped, and Steve doesn’t get very far after that because Bucky sinks two fingers into either side of Steve’s pants’ waistline and tugs them down all the way. Steve can hardly breathe as Bucky’s gaze traces him, in his underwear and nothing else, and then Steve brings his knees up and looks him in the eyes again.

“Yours too,” he says, and he mostly watches as Bucky gets his pants and suspenders off, because, well, he’s pretty sure his hands are shaking too hard to be much of a help. When they’re finally down past his ankles, crumpled in a pile at the end of the bed, Steve lets his eyes wander, and—

“Look at you,” Bucky murmurs, pushing Steve down again and licking the spot of throat just below the end of his jawbone.

“Look at you,” Steve shoots back, and he can feel Bucky’s lips curve into a grin against his neck. He bites Steve again, hard, and Steve exhales slowly and uncurls his fingers.

“Mm,” Bucky murmurs, and Steve lets him kiss his throat for a while. Steve’s breath is coming too fast, too thick, so he lies back and counts to ten, _1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10_ over again and again until he can breathe slightly more regularly.

“I want to fuck you,” Bucky whispers, breath hot against Steve’s face. Steve doesn’t know what to say to that, so he kisses him, and when Bucky pulls back, Steve watches the saliva stretch from his mouth to Bucky’s, watches Bucky’s pupils flicker above him.

-

What does he say to that? He doesn’t want to ruin anything, and, to be perfectly honest, he _wants_ Bucky to fuck him, and he’s hard, and he wants it, but he’s not sure if— 

“Yeah,” he whisper back, and wraps his fingers over the nape of Bucky’s neck, feels the scar he’s always known was there—“Yeah, okay.”

- 

At first, Bucky says that there’s no escaping that this is the life they’re going to— 

-

Bucky looks soft in the early-morning sunlight.

Steve knows that he is hard, and sturdy, and tough like rawhide, and that he can take a punch or ten—city living does that to a kid—but in the sunlight, he can almost trick himself. He’s pretty sure he’s half-asleep, half-dreaming.

He looks at Bucky, who’s sleeping on his side with the blankets pulled all the way up to his shoulder, and what does he think?

In another universe, where Steve is slightly healthier, and has spent slightly less time getting beaten up and slightly more time running, and has spent slightly less time sick at home and has as a result read slightly fewer stories about knights and princesses and happily ever after, he thinks, _fuck, fuck, fuck, fu—_

In this universe, he’s spent a great deal of time reading, and he looks at Bucky and thinks that he’s never seen anything quite as perfect.

\-                                                                                                                  

At first, Bucky says that there’s no escaping that this is the life they’re going to have to lead. He’s fucked up big time and yes, he’s screwed them over and yes, he knows that this is a life of sin and no, he’s never been a big church guy but he sure as hell believes and he’s going to pray and yes, they’re going to pray, every night, no matter what, just so he, Steve, yeah, you, will go to Heaven like he deserves.

- 

Bucky shows him how to load a gun. The two of them take a taxi and stop in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and the driver turns around and picks his nose while he informs them that they’re in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and he wipes his fingers on his pants and smiles with yellow teeth when Bucky hands him five extra dollars and tells him to forget about it.

Bucky draws two circles on tree trunks in chalk. One big one, one small one.

“The small one,” he says—“is what really counts. But you’ll have to shoot the big one first.”

-

The first time, it’s surprisingly easy.

- 

“Fuck,” Bucky says. “Fuck. _Fuck.”_  

He throws a wad of bills in Steve’s face like this is a movie. Steve looks at him and tries to smile, but he doesn’t open his mouth because he knows that he’ll throw up all over his spit-slicked black shoes and the thick hotel carpet and the bags full of money—isn’t this like a movie? If he laughs, he’ll throw up. Instead, he smiles at Bucky without opening his mouth and pretends that he can’t see the gun still bulging in his pocket. Steve’s arms are crossed over his chest because he’s trying to hold himself together, like his ribs just might collapse and his heart will spill onto the floor, like Bucky’s about to beat the shit out of him instead of lean down and hug him— _hug_ him, for Pete’s sake. Bucky’s never—well, he’s fucked Steve before, he’s but never hugged him. And now—

“We did it, Steve,” Bucky says, in his ear, like a secret, like a promise. Steve doesn’t say anything; he inhales, deep, and tries not to laugh.

-

Later, he’s going to realize that that was the last chance he had to just get up and—

-

At first, Bucky says that it’s not like they’re gonna kill anyone or anything. The guns are just a precaution; the way they’re gonna do it, it’s gonna be clean. In and out, no one gets hurt; sure, they’ll have to stick some guns in some faces, fire a few bullets at the chandeliers so everyone knows to get down on the ground, but come on. It’s not like the two of them are going to hurt anybody.

They just need the money. That’s all. They need the money, and this is the only way.

-

Seven shots. It takes seven shots.

Three shots is what he promised, the first time the two of them walked into the Synergy Bank of Bergen County wearing new suits with new ties, the kind they had to get fitted for, in rooms with mirrors and measuring tape and pretty salesgirls, the whole shtick. Yeah, they’d stick out in Brooklyn like two sore thumbs, but they don’t exactly fit in the first time they go in here, either, do they? 

Steve sets up an account and deposits thirty dollars and smiles at the lady behind the counter—a wide-faced woman with brown hair. Doris. What did the nametag say? He thinks it was Doris.

Bucky stands behind him, a respectable distance, but still close enough that Steve can’t forget why he’s here. Bucky’s looking at the ceiling, looking at the door, looking at the way the counters are shaped and noting what they’re made of, and, hell, he might not remember half of it tonight when they’re sitting on that hotel-room bed and Steve’s sketching a bank vault instead of the flowerpots and cityscapes that he’s used to, but right now, right then—

“Thank you, Doris,” he says, and nods and smiles. Doris smiles back at him, and Steve thinks of cold mornings in bed with hot toast and flowery perfume, and he tries to ignore the feeling in his chest when Bucky brushes him on their way out.

“Three,” he says. “Three is all we need.”

(It takes seven shots.)

-

Bucky takes Steve’s shirt off and Steve can’t look at him. To tell the truth, his hands are shaking as much as Steve’s, and he’s not looking at Steve, either. He’s pretty sure that if he tries to move he’s going to burst into a million pieces, so he breathes, but it’s hard, and—fuck, it’s so hard to just—

“Breathe,” Bucky says, tired, at first, not paying any real attention, eyes on the buttons he’s undoing, fingers against Steve’s chest, because this sure as hell isn’t the first time he’s had to say that to him, is it?

But Steve can feel the breath escaping his lungs like someone’s sucking it right out of him, feel that panic that sets in when he realizes that he _can’t,_ that his body isn’t listening to him anymore, and when his fingers tighten around the arms of his chair, when his knuckles go white, maybe that’s when— 

“Breathe,” Bucky says, and is this the first time Steve’s ever seen him light up with fear like a neon sign? “Breathe, goddammit!” Usually, when Steve gets like this, Bucky doesn’t; he’s sitting next to Steve, in all of Steve’s memories, on the playground blacktop next to the jungle gym, on the bathroom floor with Steve’s head halfway into the toilet, in dirty alleys neck-deep in garbage—hand on his knee, looking at his face, telling him to breathe, fucking _breathe,_ Steve, don’t just stare, you fucking idiot, _try._ But this time, he’s not; this time, Bucky’s kneeling in front of him with his hands on Steve’s shoulders and red-hot, no, white-hot fear flashing in his eyes like a goddamn— 

“Steve,” he says. “Steve!”

There is blood on Steve’s shirt, and blood in Bucky’s hair. In one version of this story, Steve dies right there, sitting on a chair in a hotel room with his pants on and his shirt half-off. With Bucky watching. Slowly, his hands stop shaking, and slowly, his body slumps to the left, and slowly, his face goes purple and then blue, like he’s died of the cold.

-

“Steve, goddamn it, Steve—”

Steve lives. He listens to the traffic outside while his lungs fight to expand and his heart leaps unevenly, and Bucky holds his hand and says his name over and over again until it’s just a sound. 

“Jesus Christ, Bucky,” Steve says, when he can finally speak again—“We just—we—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bucky says, and even though this is the first time, the second time, it feels like the millionth time he’s said that. “He didn’t—well, what was he expecting? What the hell did he expect us to do?”

-

At first, Bucky says that they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do. They’re not gonna hurt anyone on purpose, but if someone else tries to pull some shit—well, to put it nicely, he’s not gonna let someone hurt either of them. There’s no way that everyone’s gonna come out okay if something happens. What is he, Superman? What the two of them are doing isn’t _right,_ yes, but it sure as hell isn’t _wrong,_ it’s just a means of surviving, for God’s sake, and no way is someone just gonna come up to Steve and— 

-

“All right, put your hands up!”

They say that a person can get used to just about anything. Steve doesn’t think it’s true at first, and maybe it’s the second time or maybe it’s the seventeenth time, but somewhere along the line, he stops looking into their eyes and starts looking at their faces instead.

The gun, as always, feels cold in his hand.

-

Is it years? It feels like years, but when they check into another motel—always another motel—and Bucky talks to the pretty girl at the front desk, standing with his elbow on the desk and smiling that crooked smile, and Steve can’t look at him so he looks at the calendar behind her instead. There are always pictures—the Rockies for January, the Mojave for July, the Catskills for November, and thinks _how the hell is it still—_

Is it years? He brushes his teeth and sees the same goddamn runt in the mirror—blond hair that shines and twists like a girl’s, bones and angles where muscles and meat should be. Is it years? He combs his hair and washes his face and the soap always seems to smell the same as yesterday.

Bucky kisses him on the neck. It’s always the—

- 

“Where’d you get that?” 

There’s orange evening sunlight falling across their bodies as Bucky moves over Steve’s body, and Steve watches his muscles ripple and stretch under his skin as he leans forward and tastes the base of his throat. Steve squirms and straightens, and lets go of Bucky’s shoulders.

“What are you talking about?” Bucky murmurs, eyes half-open.

“That,” Steve says, louder than Bucky is. He nods to a bruise on Bucky’s shoulder that’s yellow and painful-looking and shaped like nothing in particular.

“It’s nothing,” Bucky says, kissing Steve’s collarbone. 

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” Steve says. He pulls himself to his elbows, bumping against Bucky’s face, and the look in Bucky’s eyes change from— 

“Jesus,” Bucky says before he pulls back, all the way back, and collapses against the pillows beside Steve—but just a few centimeters off, so their shoulders don’t touch. There’s enough space for it, for once in their lives; the sheets are silk and the pillows are enormous, but Steve feels sick when he can’t feel Bucky’s shoulder pressing against his.

- 

It’s too late to say, _maybe we should stop_. Isn’t it?

There are burgers in diners. It sounds like the beginning of a joke you know: two guys in cheap suits walk into a diner. Why? Because the expensive suits are at the dry cleaner’s—no, at the motel—no, left in the trunk of a car that’s still waiting in the parking lot of an abandoned candy store, empty and ringing with sounds that are no longer there. Steve doesn’t put anything on his. Bucky loads up on ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise, too, just because he can, and just because it’s free. Well, why not?

Steve picks at his food. He picks it apart like he’s dissecting that mouse back in freshman-year biology—except back then Steve had no clue what he was doing, and now, he is surgeon-precise.

Out comes the pickle. One pickle. This is a cheap diner, isn’t it? One pickle. There are a few pieces of lettuce, and he spreads them out on his plate like a deck of cards. Jack, Queen, King, all as soggy and lifeless as the last. The tomato—

“Eat, will you?” Bucky snaps, and Steve flinches but doesn’t look up. He sits up a little straighter and is about to put the tomato back in when he notices the mustard-yellow stains on Bucky’s fingernails.

“What are you, my mother?” Steve’s voice sounds angry. He’s not angry. He’s just—

“You’re a bag of bones,” Bucky says, “held together by some stringy meat. I haven’t seen you eat in a week.”

 Steve wonders what it would be like to kiss Bucky right now.

Thinking about it before, back when they were kids—that was different. That was never a real possibility, only a fantasy, and Steve always imagined it deep and wet and passionate—the kinds of kisses he saw in comics, sometimes, two people clenching each others’ shirts, the shorter one standing on tiptoe. That was how Steve imagined it, if he was in a good mood, even back when he knew that there was no chance of that ever happening, of Bucky’s mouth ever coming closer than the distance it took to shout into his face.

Steve wonders what it would be like to kiss Bucky right now.

Steve looks at Bucky’s mouth, which has something white dripping out of the corner, and he wonders what it would be like to fuck—a real fuck, the kind where he didn’t have to care about being brave or being stoic or impressing Bucky. Was the first time like that? He wonders what it would be like to fuck him and gasp and moan and bite his earlobe and drag lines down his back, leave his fingernail half-moons on his ass, make him beg for it, make him say his name. Steve—

“You got mayonnaise on your face,” Steve says, and takes a bite out of the pickle.

Bucky leaves a nice tip. There’s one hysterical waitress taking care of the whole goddamn place, and she just about kisses him when she picks it up. Steve watches Bucky, just before the two of them leave—standing and pretending to yawn. It’s a crowded diner.

Bucky leaves a nice tip. The two of them leave, and then they come back, a few weeks later, with hard faces and cold weights in their pockets.

-

Steve knows where Bucky keeps the money, and Steve knows where Bucky keeps the guns.

Bucky keeps all of the money in a suitcase that the two of them lug everywhere. It’s getting heavier and heavier; Bucky keeps saying that he’s gonna have to buy a new one, but Steve knows that he’s grown too fond of this one to give up. It belonged to—who did it belong to? He can’t remember. He knows that they didn’t buy it. He knows that it used to belong to someone, because it has a pair of initials scratched into the corner, but he can’t remember much else.

-

“Maybe we should stop,” Steve says.

Bucky’s hands freeze, still holding the comb, still in his hair. Steve looks at Bucky's reflection in the mirror instead of at his face, but his Bucky's are unreadable.

“Maybe,” Steve says, and he watches the shadow of his fingers cast against the wall by the yellow lamplight—“we have enough. Not even maybe, Buck—we have enough money. What do we have—four, five thousand? That’s enough. What are we gonna do with five thousand dollars? What the hell could we do with ten thousand dollars?”

Steve have never been good with words, and he still isn’t, now; it’s all or nothing for him, words either stuck inside like peanut butter on the roof of his mouth or words gushing out like a waterfall, and this time— 

Bucky’s hands start moving again.

“Jesus,” Steve says, and for a second he remembers how much he used to pray when he was a kid—“Jesus,” Steve says, and his hands clasp together in his lap. “We coulda lived like kings on twenty bucks back home. And—”

“Steve.” 

“—did this. Listen to me, we don’t need this. We’re better than this. We grew up better than this, and we were raised better than this. You think the Bucky from two years ago would think this was okay?”

“Steve.”

“I know you, Bucky—you tell yourself it’s okay, you tell yourself it’s _fine,_ you tell yourself it’s okay because there are other people doing it, and other people driving fast cars and eating at restaurants and fucking the rest of us over, every day, every second of every day—but that doesn’t make it okay. And you keep telling yourself it’s okay. But you know what? I’ve got blood on my hands because it’s okay. I killed a—we’ve _killed_ people and you tell me it’s okay. You tell me it’s okay. You will, won’t you? You _fucking_ tell me it’s—”

“Steve.”

“Don’t you _fucking_ Steve me,” Steve says, and his voice comes out hysterical, even in his own ears, and the corners of his vision are bubbling, and he’s closer to Bucky than he remembers—standing in front of the mirror right next to him, now—“Don’t you _fucking_ tell me that you’re doing this for me. You’re not doing this for me, and you’re not doing this for—”

“God fucking _dammit_ , stop shouting,” Bucky says, and then something inside of Steve snaps, and before he knows it, he—

-

“ _Fuck,”_ Bucky spits, and there’s blood on his shirt; Steve stares at him for a good five seconds before he realize that he's staring, and for another six before he finds a towel and presses it against Bucky’s face.

Bucky sits on the edge of the bed.

Steve can’t quite bring himself to sit next to him. He knows the way Bucky likes his eggs in the morning, and what he thinks of girls with red hair and long legs, and the sound he makes before he comes, and how good of a singer he is when he tries, and the way he likes Steve to jerk him off a little before he blows him, but Steve doesn’t know what to say to him now, and what to think of that.

“It’s just that—” Bucky’s voice is stuffy—“I fucked up so much. There’s just no way we can just—you know that, don’t you, Steve? I’d take it all back in a heartbeat. I don’t want to do this anymore, either—you know I don’t fucking want to do this, do you?”

In the end, Steve sits next to him, anyway, and Bucky stares at the ceiling for a very, very long time.

-

He has sex with Bucky in the bathroom of a restaurant that they’re planning to shoot up afterwards. It’s not his first time, but he’s not exactly used to it, either, is he?

Bucky holds Steve up with his hands and his weight and maybe his eyes, too, and Steve—well, he takes it. He wants it. At least, he tells himself that he wants it, and that’s what he believes. And after—and after, when Steve’s sitting on the edge of a rusty sink and pulling his belt back on while Bucky pulls his gun out of his pocket—what does it matter if Bucky kisses him or not?

-

“I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, through the towel. “So am I.”

- 

(Ten minutes later, the water’s on in the next room and Steve hears Bucky singing in the shower.)

-

The thing Steve learns about people is that there are always going to be some exceptions. What would he do if he heard a _bang!_ and another _bang!_ —two shots? He’s pretty sure he’d be on his knees so fast his head would still be floating somewhere above him.

At first, they’re all like that. They only look at his face when he’s not looking, which makes it easier for him. Does he really want to see their eyes? Bucky tells them to put their hands where he can see them. Does he really want to see their shaking fingers, the silent words coming out of the shapes their mouths are making? _Dear God dear almighty Father dear Jesus please please—_

(They only look at his face when he’s not looking, which makes it easier for him.)

The thing he learns about people is that there are always going to be some exceptions.

There’s this bank, somewhere up in Sussex, he’s not exactly sure, and everyone is so goddamn _quiet_ as he’s telling the red-faced girl at the counter to put the money in the bag that he can almost _feel—_

“Hey, you!” Bucky’s voice echoes. “Yeah, you, you fucking son-of-a-bitch—look here. What the fuck at you doing? Look here! Look at my fucking face!”

Steve doesn’t turn around, just looks at the girl. She has curly red hair and she’s bursting out of her small, starched-white dress. She’s staring at Bucky, now, hands moving automatically. 

“What are you looking at her for? She your wife? I don’t give a fuck. Just look here. Show me your hands, you fucker.” 

Steve can hear the sound of a woman sobbing, quietly—those measured sobs that sound so, so familiar, except they’ve never belonged to him, or Bucky. They come from the bedroom beside his, through thin walls, far away. And now, here.

“No, don’t— _you son-of-a_ —”

Suddenly there are footsteps, too fast, too light, but he—

The gun goes off at the same time Steve hears the scream. Not a woman’s scream; that comes later. Not man’s scream; that doesn’t come at all. The gunshot is so fast and so sudden that Steve can’t imagine why Bucky would—

The girl’s fingers have stopped moving; her hand is clapped over her mouth, thick red fingers over thick red lips. Steve turns around and looks, but Bucky’s back is blocking his view. The woman starts to scream. Does it happen in slow motion? No; she starts screaming and Steve finally turns around. Like nails on a—

“What happened?” Steve asks. He already knows part of the answer.

Bucky doesn’t respond.

“What the hell happened?”

Bucky is frozen.

Steve’s about to walk up beside Bucky and ask again, but then he notices the color of the small shoe that is hanging just barely in view, and then he notices a note in the woman’s scream that he didn’t catch before, and then he notices the perfect color of the blue marble that rolls past Bucky’s foot.

-

At first, Bucky says that he didn’t mean to do this to Steve, to anyone, but some things happen. Things happen for a reason, goddamn it. People die for reasons—innocent people. It happens every goddamn day! Steve’s mother died—his ma died when they were—well, it doesn’t matter, does it? They met each other because of her. Where would they be if that hadn’t happened? Steve? They’re just gonna have to move on, right? Right. That’s good. They aren’t bad people, you know—they’re just being forced to do bad things. That’s right—their hand is being forced here. But you know what? They’re strong. They’re just gonna have to move on. Real good. That’s what they do. 

-

“I can’t let this happen anymore,” Steve says, and his hands are tangled in his hair. “I can’t—I can’t be a fucking part of this anymore.”

“What are you gonna do?” Bucky asks, but he doesn’t look Steve in the face. “What can you do? This is the life we’re gonna have to—”

-

The initials scratched onto the corner read _K.P._

(Fifteen thousand dollars, and you’re still gonna keep going?)

-

A million years later, Bucky reads the paper at breakfast, and he laughs and laughs and laughs. 

“Get a load of this,” he says, and his eyes are hidden under black sunglasses—“Newton, New Jersey, November 18—Police have linked the Sussex County murder to the brutal murder-cum-bank robbery that appalled the Franklin community on November 2. Suspects are two New York men, aged approximately twenty years old, with—”

Steve tears off a piece of toast and puts it into his mouth. 

“—string of robberies that have shocked the state of New Jersey.” Bucky looks up from the paper. “See, Rogers? What’d I tell you? We made it big. Of course it had to be in fucking Jersey, of all places. Fucking—but still. Can you believe it? All we had to do was shoot a few broads. Can you imagine?”

It dawns on him slowly, but he knows that it is what it is. It feels like—it feels a lot like the beginning of the end. 

Why does it feel like the beginning of the end? Steve’s not sure. There’s something funny, about this, about the checkered tablecloth and the burnt toast and the suitcase that’s sitting in the trunk of the LaSalle fifty feet from where they’re sitting, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. 

Steve’s not sure. Bucky’s laugh sounds different than he’s ever heard it before.

-

The thing is—

The thing is, Steve’s the kind of guy who tells people to be quiet in movie theaters not because he can’t hear the film but because somebody can’t hear the film; he’s the kind of guy that sticks up for mothers in clothing stores not because they’re his mother but because they’re somebody’s mother. He’s the kind of guy that gets his ass kicked for being stubborn and is stubborn anyway, he’s the kind of guy who’d rather take a beating around the face than sit down and watch it— 

There are some things that don’t change.

Well, that’s a lie, isn’t it?

-

Bucky shows him how to load a gun, and Steve is a fast learner when he tries. 

-

The beginning of the end is in a restaurant in Newton with a blonde waitress smiling at him through purple rings around her left eye, and the middle of the end is in a back alley with the open trunk of a car glinting at him across wet moonlight-slicked streets, and the end of the end is in another, yet another motel room with Steve gasping into the blue darkness and Bucky’s hands on his hips.

Bucky likes to talk during sex, and Steve knows it, which is why he makes enough noise for the both of them. He plants his hands on Bucky’s slick chest and makes a sound when Bucky pushes him down, hands clenching his hips, hipbones, clutching the swell of his ass.

Steve closes his eyes and tries to feel him, tries to remember, and—

“ _Fuck,”_ Bucky gasps, and his head falls back against the pillows—eyes shut, mouth open. Steve rides him through the last few strokes, and he clenches around him when he’s close, and he doesn’t pull off when Bucky comes wet and hot inside of him—and when he’s spent, Steve rolls off to the side and lies on his back, chest moving up and down in time to Bucky’s—too fast. He feels numb. 

“Jesus,” Bucky says. Steve gets the feeling Bucky’s talking to the darkness more than he’s talking to him. 

He can’t pinpoint the exact second when he feels his heart crumble into a thousand pieces, but he’s pretty sure it’s somewhere when Bucky rolls over onto his side and kisses him and whispers _you’re fucking amaz—_

“Bucky,” Steve says.

“Shh,” Bucky murmurs, and catches Steve’s lower lip between his teeth. “Relax.” His hand moves down his chest, past the faint dusting of blonde hair between his legs. Steve is tired, and he hasn’t gotten off in longer than he can remember, and it’s been a rough week, or a rough month—more like a rough year, or maybe, better yet, a rough life—and he is harder than he’d like to admit, and Bucky’s fingers are warm and spit-slicked between his thighs, but Steve still hesitates when Bucky’s hand clenches around his cock.

“Bucky, I—”

He’s about to push him away when Bucky’s hand starts to move. And Bucky presses his mouth to Steve’s in a way that Steve can’t remember, and—and then he gives up. Steve gives up, and he lets Bucky’s tongue into his mouth, and he makes all the right noises as Bucky jerks him off, and he comes sticky all over Bucky’s fingers, and when it’s over, he closes his eyes and press his lips to Bucky’s.

-

“Bucky.”

No response. 

“Bucky, are you—?”

Bucky looks soft when he sleeps.

-

Steve knows where Bucky keeps the money, and Steve knows where Bucky keeps the—

There are three of them. One for Bucky, one for Steve, one for emergencies. Steve knows his from the way it feels, its weight in the palm of his hand, and he—well, he hates knowing that. He used to be able to tell apart all of his paintbrushes from how he had to hold the ferrule and the wooden shaft in his fingers to keep it balanced—the tiny pointed rounds were easy, the mops were impossible, the filberts and daggers were somewhere in between. He remembers how he used to—

It seems—almost funny, now. What would the newspapers say about that? Steve can imagine the write-up: Sussex Country Murderer’s Art Portfolio Discovered. Photographs in the paper of still-life flowers and fish bowls next to his awful senior-yearbook photograph. That’s the only real photo they have of him, don’t they? The only real record? 

This time, it feels—different than it did before. This is the first time, he realizes, that he actually knows what’s going to happen when he pulls the trigger.

-

His heart stops in his chest when he gets a good look at him. There are stripes of yellow gas-station light slanting across the bed, long and thin, and—and for a second—more than a second; how long does Steve stand there? He’s not sure. A minute, two minutes? Maybe it’s an hour—and he can’t help but take a look at Bucky—a long look.

The way he sleeps, the way his hair curls, the way his arms are shaped. His mouth is open just a little bit; his fingers are bent in the empty space next to him; his—

And—and for just a second, Steve can feel something rising in his throat, his heart, as he raises the gun.

- 

(Like all things, the feeling passes.)

-

The night is big and bright and colder than he’s ever seen it before.

Steve’s only been to Jersey once before. He can’t even remember it. How old was he—two, three? That was back when his mother wore red dresses and did her hair up real nice. He remembers looking old photographs of him smiling next to a woman he never quite recognized—sitting in the sun and the sea, his clothes sandy, his hair wet against his forehead. Steve swears he can remember parts of it—the way the ocean sounded, the seagulls’ screams—but there’s a part of him that wonders if that’s a real memory at all. 

The streets now are cold and smooth; there are no stars, but that’s not to say that there isn’t any light, is there? There’s light—Jesus, there’s a lot of light. He almost forgot how lit-up the place is this time of year: Santa Claus and all of his ruddy-faced elves twinkle at Steve from every storefront. There are presents under trees made out of plastic and blessed by angels—train sets, toy rifles, dolls with dresses prettier than the ones his mother used to wear. There’s almost enough light to remind him of Brooklyn. Almost.

His clothes are clean, and his hair is washed. He walks slowly, and he pulls his hat low over his head even though the streets are empty. He’s not exactly going to be able to call a cab—call anyone, really. There isn’t a person, a phone in sight. It doesn’t matter. Who’s he going to call, anyway?

Steve’s shirt is two sizes too big for him and smells like sweat and cigarettes and old cologne.

The night is big and bright and colder than Steve’s ever seen it before. 

-

This is not the worst universe, but it’s not the best, either.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the monster of a fic that, apparently, I've been working on-and-off for a year. Literally. Word tells me that I started this on November 11, 2012. 
> 
> While the time I've actually spent writing it across the year is probably a month, I can't begin to process how amazing it is to finally be done. (And all of this because I heard [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_gWZrDT3E) song on the bus one afternoon. Yikes.)


End file.
